There are many disorders which would benefit from an enhancement of normal or deficient immune responses through a decrease in the number or the function of lymphocyte subpopulations with regulatory/suppressive function, or through an increase in the numbers or function of effector subpopulations. These disorders include cancers but also some chronic infections of different aetiology (viral, fungal, protozoa, bacterial). Further, it would be beneficial to provide adjuvants, especially in the field of poorly immunogenic antigens.
Cancer or malignant neoplasm are a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth, invasion that intrudes upon and destroys adjacent tissues, and sometimes metastasis, or spreading to other locations in the body via lymph or blood. These three malignant properties of cancers or malignant neoplasm differentiate them from benign tumours, which do not invade or metastasize.
A tumour is the name for a neoplasm or a solid lesion formed by an abnormal growth of cells (termed neoplastic) which looks like a swelling. Tumour is not synonymous of cancer. A tumour can be benign, pre-malignant or malignant, whereas cancer is by definition malignant.
Tumours and cancers are indeed disorders of normal cell growth (abnormal or uncontrolled).
Many approaches are used to fight cancer and malignant tumours. Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, monoclonal antibody therapy or other methods. The choice of therapy depends upon the location and grade of the tumour, as well as upon the stage of the disease, and of the patient (age, sex, etc.). Being one of the main causes of worldwide death, several experimental cancer treatments are also under development. Generally, the cancer therapies are also applicable to malignant tumour treatments.
Complete removal of the cancer or tumour without damage to the rest of the body is the goal of the treatment. Sometimes this can be accomplished by surgery, but the propensity of cancers and malignant tumours to invade adjacent tissue or to spread to distant sites by microscopic metastasis, often limits its effectiveness.
In general terms, chemotherapy is the treatment of an ailment by chemicals, especially by killing micro-organisms or cancerous cells. In popular usage, it refers to antineoplastic drugs used to treat cancer. However, chemotherapy involves a drawback as most treatments are also toxic to non-cancerous tissues in the body.
Another therapeutic approach to treat cancer or tumours is by means of immunomodulating agents, which are compounds designed to induce, enhance, or suppress an immune response. Immunotherapies designed to elicit or amplify an immune response are classified as activation immunotherapies. Immunotherapies designed to reduce, suppress or more appropriately direct an existing immune response, as in cases of autoimmunity or allergy, are classified as suppression immunotherapies. The active agents of immunotherapy are collectively called immunomodulators. They include recombinant, synthetic and natural preparations, and are often cytokines.
Finally, monoclonal antibody therapy refers to the use of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to specifically bind to target cells or soluble molecules. This may then stimulate the patient's immune system to attack or neutralize those cells or molecules. It is possible to create a mAb specific to almost any extracellular/cell surface target, and thus there is a large amount of research and development currently being undergone to create mAb for numerous serious diseases, including cancers. MAb may be used for therapy to destroy malignant tumour cells and prevent tumour growth, for example by blocking specific cell receptors. Sometimes, the mAb is also radioisotopically labelled, which means that once the antibody reaches the target, a lethally radioactive dose is delivered to the target cell.
It is then noteworthy that there is a need for more advanced cell growth disorder therapies and tools to perform them.
The technical problem underlying the present invention can thus be seen as the provision of an immunostimulatory agent, such as for the treatment and/or prophylaxis of tumor and/or cancer as well as adjuvants.